College News

Collaborative Work by Rice Recognized at Imagine RIT Event

05/28/2013

The collaborative work of Dr. Rob Rice, Director of Clinical Internships in the Mental Health Counseling Program, and two colleagues from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), was recently recognized at the Imagine RIT event on May 5.

Rice has been working with Dr. Laurence Sugarman, Director of the Center for Applied Psychophysiology and Self-Regulation at RIT’s Institute of Health Sciences and Technology and Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Dr. Stephen Jacobs, Associate Professor of RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media, on a project called, “MindGamers.” It is a role-playing video game designed to teach calming and self-regulating skills to teenagers with autism spectrum and obsessive-compulsive disorders. The idea is for a patient to play the game during a therapy session in an effort to learn to control stress and overcome certain thoughts and behaviors. While the game is still being developed, the trio hopes to have a playable first-level game by fall.

“MindGamers” won the Hewlett Packard Sponsor Award for the best computer science project at the Imagine RIT event on May 5. It was also featured in the spring/summer issue of Research at RIT, the school’s research magazine.